I
discovered to my astonishment that evolutionary and neurological
approaches to literary criticism were now the Coming Thing in academic
circles. Further research led me to a rapidly expanding, bullish,
“neuroaesthetic” discourse purporting to explain the impact of
paintings, music, and other arts by examining the neural pathways they
stimulated. Wherever I looked, I saw the humanities being taken over by
neuro-evolutionary pseudoscience: musicology, the law, ethical theory,
and theology all sought a grounding in biology.

And here is a representative quote from the review:

Aping Mankind is
the book to read for anyone who has suspected something ludicrous in
all those scientific “discoveries” which now seem to fly off the
newspaper page on a weekly basis, whether the “discovery” that little
girls’ preference for pink is a result of early hominid foraging
patterns, or the “discovery” that Shakespeare’s poetry is so affecting
because it stimulates certain neurons in the brain. Tallis demonstrates
that our intuition of the silliness of this sort of thing is correct,
that in fact neurology and evolutionary theory cannot tell us anything
significant about even mundane activities like buying a can of beans at
the store, and therefore grand projects of “Darwinian literary
criticism” or “Darwinian theology” are, as he puts it, “rubbish.” Over
and over again, Tallis shows us that the portrait of human life
presented by materialism – of things like romantic love, or economic
deliberation – bears absolutely no resemblance to human life as it is
really lived and experienced by every one of us. It is that experience -
the realm of conscious desire, belief, and action - which Tallis
insists is the realm of human reality; his book is essentially one long
relentless assertion of common sense against a delusive but entrenched
academic orthodoxy.

This has been a theme of mine for quite some time. The absurdity of the so-called scientific research into music and aesthetics has frustrated me on several occasions before: here, and here and here.

The Wall Street Journal, demonstrating their hipness, has an article on a scholarly conference on heavy metal music. This kind of study isn't all that new. I went to a musicology conference at Rochester in the mid-1990s that covered a lot of the same ground. The problem with all these sorts of studies is that the line between scholar and fan often gets obscured. These people are ones who have studied academic methods and want to apply them to their enthusiasms. This can work out well if the object of the enthusiasm actually has merit. But is that the case? Is heavy metal music worth this kind of attention? More pointedly, is it a scholarly study if there is no critique of heavy metal? Here is where being a fan lets you down because you are reluctant to point out deficiencies in your heroes. If you can't say something like "many of the songs on such-and-such an album reveal a decline in creativity" or "this group would be a lot more convincing if they learned to tune their guitars", then I question how valuable your contribution can be.

A lot of musicians have passed away recently including the enormously prolific conductor Colin Davis and the English composer Stephen Dodgson who wrote some excellent music for guitar. Check Norman Lebrecht's site for these and other stories.

NPR has an article on a talk given recently by Yo-Yo Ma about the nature and social role of the arts. As a skeptic I am somewhat, ah, skeptical about all this, but I have to admit that Yo-Yo Ma makes a better argument than most. Here he explains what he sees as the justification for seeking out cultural diversity:

Let's take my favorite example of creativity from science. In ecology,
where two ecosystems meet, such as the forest and the savannah, the
point of intersection is the site of "edge effect." In that transition
zone, because of the influence the two ecological communities have on
each other, you find the greatest diversity of life, as well as the
greatest number of new life forms. The edge effect is where those of varied backgrounds come
together in a zone of transition; a region of less structure, more
diversity and more possibility. The edge is a time and place of
transformation and movement.

He demonstrates the idea of the listener completing the musical work by 'hearing' notes that cannot be literally sustained with a Bach Sarabande.

All this is very well, but I probably don't have to point out that I am suspicious of metaphors from science. Plus, if you want an audience to be sympathetic to your ideas you can't do better than play Bach for them. But of course, none of this is anything other than bowing to a particular idol of our time: cultural diversity. It would come as a considerable relief to me if Yo-Yo Ma or someone else of his stature were to stand up and say something against one of the deeply-rooted prejudices of our time. Something like "cultural diversity" is bunk. Now that would be interesting...

Let's end with a pretty good example of heavy metal, "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica:

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Awards

Quotes

"I always find plenty to disagree with on Bryan's blog but I always find it a stimulating place for discussion and I seem to learn something new every time I visit this site."

--commentator Anonymous

"Your "blog" is priceless to me and many others."

--commentator Archilochus

I am so thankful for obsessive thinkers and writers like yourself who give us something interesting and intellectually nourishing to chew on almost every day. And your discussions have clarified and expanded many of my views about art and music in particular.

Bravissimo!

--commentator Jives

Congratulations for running a comments section full of enlightening aesthetic debates.

--commentator Jack

Thanks for your devotion and hard work on this blog. It should be required reading for anyone with love of, or interest in, classical music.

--commentator David

Great writing here at the music salon by the way - I just found the site recently and have been really enjoying it. Within the last year, I've started exploring the western classical tradition and your writing here has been a recent springboard to so much good music!

--commentator Jon

"I've been reading your blog for nearly a year now, and as a college student new to the world of classical music I have to say it's been incredibly informative."

--Matthew Briehl

"This is the most consistently engaging and instructive music blog of which I am aware."

About Me

Born in Alberta, Canada, grew up on Vancouver Island, lived a decade in Montreal, resident in Mexico since 1998. Degrees in music from McGill University in performance, post-graduate study in musicology. From 2008 to 2011 I wrote a large set of songs for voice and guitar on poems by Robert Graves, Wallace Stevens, Victor Hugo, Rilke, Aristophanes, Anna Akhmatova, Roethke, Li Po, John Donne and Philip Larkin.
Catalogue includes two suites for solo guitar, chamber music for violin, viola and guitar, two guitars and harpsichord and other combinations including three pieces for guitar orchestra published by Guitarissimo of Stockholm, Sweden. In the last couple of years I have focused on music for orchestra and so far I have written an overture and three symphonies.
Publications include two books of pedagogy for guitar, one on technique and the other on playing Bach, which included eight new transcriptions for guitar.
Four Pieces for Violin and Guitar are available from The Avondale Press: http://www.theavondalepress.com/catalog/four-pieces/
In April 2015 a new piece for violin and piano, "Chase" was premiered in a concert at Belles Artes in San Miguel de Allende, Gto. Mexico.